Salvation by His Hand
by leboisduloup
Summary: A Legato fiction. "I cannot fathom his reasons- how can he deny my Master’s words? He turns his face from the truth, and tries to pretend he can change things. In the end, all he changes is himself, becoming more like unto them."
1. one digit

Title:  Salvation by His Hand

Notes:  Spoilers, yuss, but my stories always have them.  Gomen!  ^^ I dunno why I wrote this.  I should be doing my homework, but Legato won't stop angsting in my head, so I guess I should let him out.  The least he could do is express himself well through my writing, but... oh well.  This is by far my worst Trigun fic ever (I play Wolfwood, dammit; why am I trying to write other characters?  I can't do them at all.  . I'll be the first human Legato kills for this travesty.)

There's nothing quite as thrilling as staining his perfect white flesh with the ichor of those he's sought so long to protect.  I love the way it beads, forming rivulets that fall, slowly...  Suspended on his fingers, his wrist.  It's an aesthetic marvel to watch it.  Mesmerizing.  Although I know He'd prefer me to be a bit more alacritous, He allows me still these simple pleasures, as long as it would kill His brother to know it.  As I am sure it would.  

Because, of course, that's where the excitement comes from.  It is the knowledge that it would pain him so that makes it so very pleasant to do it.  As I was charged long ago, His brother is to suffer.  By following my orders, and doing as He bade me, I redeem myself and cleanse myself of the profanity of my unhappy Kind.

By serving my betters, I rise above the mass of humanity.  In their ignorance, they fear what is different, what is superior.  If only they could see the truth, and rejoice in what they cannot aspire to...  Salvation.  It comes from serving the purposes of greatness.  Humanity is contrary to progress; I do my part to make myself obsolete, that He and, yes, his loathsome sibling, may rule.  Because despite his wrong thinking, the brother is that which I may never seek to be.

Slowly the blood pools in the lines of his hand as I fold the digits inward, drawing them together to make a fist.  The power that flows through the muscle beneath that so-fragile flesh is not mine; yet it is mine to command.  Lifesblood wells up between those so-soft digits, glistening in the half-light of suns'-set.  Irresistibly attractive, I raise his fingers to my lips for a kiss, tinged with the metallic tang of death.  The image of the only beauty my Kind can attain; that of destruction.

Something of which we are so capable.

It is the 'sinners' among them who are closest to saints; for, though their motivations are twisted, they serve His purpose in slaying their kind.  Their only failing is that they do it for their own sakes, planning to elevate themselves above their Kind.  The only way they could manage that would be to put the blades to their own throats when they finished.  As, doubtless, I will be bidden to do when I have served my purpose.  And it is in that thought that I rejoice; that, after serving Him for my life, I serve Him by sacrificing it.

My only guilt in myself lies in that desire; I can hardly wait, sometimes, for the moment in which all have perished, and it shall be my chance to do so.  I cannot lie, and say I do not aspire to that moment of near-perfection (though never perfection; I would never be so bold and blasphemous to suggest myself His equal.)  

I should not be so ungrateful.  I have been blessed; I shall have a hand in the eradication of these imperfect beings who spawned me.


	2. two digits

Title: Salvation by His Hand

Notes:  Chapter two!  Whee.  ^^  I still suck.  I might mention, for anyone who's never read my stories (insert shameless pleas for reviews here) that I'm inclined towards short chapters.  So... enjoy!  ^^  I'll try to write more soon, but I have 50 pages of History to read, a dialogue in French to memorize, and god knows how much Math to do before tomorrow.  So... yeah.  .  I shouldn't have done this.  Why did I?  Because the muse is speaking.  And he wun shut up.  

The sound of my voice strikes a nerve within him; it is writ across his face.  The fool (though such a fool, I'd die to be,) has spent so long amongst them, he seems almost like unto them.  But never could one mistake him for something so rough as a human, if their eyes be open; he moves with the power and grace his Brother commands, though he tries to hide it.  Why?  I cannot fathom his reasons- how can he deny my Master's words?  He turns his face from the truth, and tries to pretend he can change things.  In the end, all he changes is himself, becoming more like unto them.  Even the Master calls him a fool.  I think him such, though I should not.  But why does the butterfly seek to be the spider?  It is a mystery.

I feel a shiver, an echo of his presence, through myself.  As though, with proximity, the limb awakens.  And yet I am still its master; I am the outlaw's master.  

_"I'm certain you know why I've come, so we may as well dispense with the usual pleasantries."_

A smile curls over my lips as he turns to face me, his eyes ablaze for a moment with anger- a pure, divine fury, as great as His own.  But behind this there is a weaker emotion, dirty and corrupt.  Very human.  It makes me almost sick to sense it in him.  Fear.  Absolute, cold terror, as jagged and uncontrolled as broken glass; and, like broken glass, as likely to hurt the one who wields it as the one at whom it's aimed.  Such a thing should never belong to one of his kind.

And yet, I cannot deny the thrill of it.  For it is _I_ he fears.  As much as he seeks their company, forswearing what he deserves to protect the spiders from His truth, our misguided butterfly remembers still that the spider bites.  And it has a venom all its own.

He fears me more than anyone else ever has.  He fears me, I think, more than he has ever feared anything.  The magnitude, such a terror...  I am more than a bit drunk on my own power as I await his answer.


	3. three digits

Notes:  Well, long delayed, here it is; the third digit.  ^_^  Much thanks for the praise (though Lord knows I don't deserve it.  Jess, you write Leggy-chan better than I ever could.  Don't let him tell you otherwise.  And Bennu, you can keep your soul; I wouldn't know what to do with one anyway (mine's in the hands of a certain priest as is,) and your talent for our poor, beautiful blue-haired boy so far outstrips my own... Nae, if I think about it more I will become horribly intimidated and never finish this story.

_"I'm certain you know what my answer is, so why don't you get back to my brother and tell him so."  _I won't say I'm not surprised by his force- usually, he lets _their_ meekness take him.  Perhaps it's the lack of spoken words; when he's forced to evidence his talents, he does so admirably.  And I, of course, know his talents as well as any other.

I've studied them.

I've seen them.

I've _stolen_ them.

His eyes travel to his own hand- the one embodied, now, by cold metal and taut leather.  It's a strange thing, to lose a hand, and to be given another.  Though I hesitate to claim it (again, I raise myself in my own sights.  I'm still an arrogant little spider, aren't I?  I don't deserve His regard,) he and I are not so dissimilar in some respects (is that why He suffers my presence?  I sin so before him; no matter how I strive, I am nothing.)

Then he glances at my face, although I can feel his desire to watch our hand.  Mine, and his.  I let the thrill of it touch my lips, and fold my arms over my chest.  Temptation incarnate, if I can be it.  Yes, yes, outlaw.  Look on what you can't have anymore.

_You can't have it until I have _my_ reward_.  Selfish little spider, I am.  A second sin.  _Come, outlaw, take it.  Use that pretty gun of yours.  I won't even ask you to use it_ right.  

Oh, but I neglect conversation in favor of my own thoughts.  Inconsiderate of me.  "_Ah, so you deny the truth still?_"  I let a little of my thoughts trickle out to him, try to make him see the light.  And as I expected, he recoils.

"That's hardly the truth.  I'm not subject to my brother's delusions."  He eyes me, and I get another shiver through our tendons.  I crack a knuckle absently.  His eyes (what I can see of them behind those golden lenses,) are so like the Master's when he gets angry.  It's almost disconcerting, their adamancy in opposition.  "Or the delusions of my brother's subjects."

I incline my head with the faintest of grins in recognition.  At least he shan't try to convince me of my freewill.  He seems to have accepted that I haven't any.  Still, I let the echo of his own power hang in the air between us.  I paint a picture for him that I once saw; an old painting, cracked and breaking, of God and man.  And between them only a breath of space, the digits nearly touching.  If only one would dare to move.  

_If only one would have the mercy he claims so high, and let the other find his release._


End file.
